This fall, he’s following that command but teaching Arabic at Duke, joining the university’s team of Arabic instructors. He has six years of experience teaching Arabic in a classroom setting, a master’s of arts teaching Arabic for speakers of other language (2009), and a master’s in American studies (2014) from the University of Jordan.

“Ben Tarif was highly recommended by Duke students who studied with him in Jordan through the Kenan refugee program in Amman led by Suzanne Shanahan,” said Mbaye Lo, assistant professor of the practice and Arabic Language Program Coordinator at Duke. “So, he is somewhat familiar with the Duke culture; and with him, we hope to secure a diverse, and yet highly talented Arabic faculty to serve our students.”

QUESTION: You’re an award winning Arabic instructor who’s had a variety of experiences teaching Arabic, teaching UN employees, diplomats, defense department officials and U.S. soldiers and university students. How can you compare these experiences?

BEN TARIF: I think teaching Arabic for different groups is challenging, because

you are dealing with many people from many backgrounds, and each have their own goal to study the language. When we talk about diplomats, soldiers and defense department officials, going back to school again to learn a language can be frustrating to them. You have to create your own curriculum that meets their needs to learn the language, and this is fun.

QUESTION: Why is it so important for people to learn Arabic? What should people know about learning Arabic?

BEN TARIF: Arabic is the fifth most commonly spoken native language in the world and the official language in in more than 20 countries. There are more than 300 million native speakers of the language. The Arab-speaking world has a rich cultural heritage with its own unique art, music, literature, cuisine, and way of life. Also there are financial incentives for learning Arabic. The US government has designated Arabic as a language of strategic importance. Continue reading →

“The communities I write about in the book — South Asian, Arab, Muslim and Sikh immigrants — are “othered” and scapegoated today in our country. But at the same time, they are finding the strength, courage and purpose to reshape America by telling their own narratives, building community power, and changing policy.” — Deepa Iyer

Column » ‘By the Book’ with Joseph Preville

by JOSEPH RICHARD PREVILLE and JULIE POUCHER HARBIN for ISLAMiCommentary on SEPTEMBER 29, 2015:

A vibrant multiracial America is emerging right before our eyes. According to a new report by the Pew Research Center, “Multiracial Americans are at the cutting edge of social and demographic change in the U.S.—young, proud, tolerant and growing at a rate three times as fast as the population as a whole.” (“Multiracial in America,” June 11, 2015).

Deepa Iyer takes a looks at the struggles behind this momentous change in the United States and the challenges ahead in We Too Sing America: South Asian, Arab, Muslim, andSikh Immigrants Shape Our Multiracial Future (The New Press, November 2015). She writes that America “has yet to fully confront the scope and effects of racial anxiety, Islamophobia, and xenophobia that have permeated our national narratives and policies in the years since 9/11. We must change this legal, cultural, and political climate of hostility and suspicion, especially as communities perceived as ‘others’ change American cities, schools, and neighborhoods due to population increases and migration patterns.”

A native of Kerala, India, Deepa Iyer immigrated to the United States at the age of 12 with her parents and brother to Louisville, Kentucky. In a 2014 interview, she reflected on her early experiences as an immigrant to America: “It did not take long to find out I was on the margins, that I was not mainstream. In the mid-80s in Kentucky, people were used to a black or white racial paradigm. People like me fit neither. I definitely had my share of experiencing some bullying and harassment at school, which shaped my sense of being different.”

Iyer, currently a Senior Fellow at Center for Social Inclusion, is a graduate of Vanderbilt University and University of Notre Dame Law School. An activist, writer and lawyer, she has served as a Trial Attorney for the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice and as Executive Director of South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT).

Her work on immigrant and civil rights issues began at the Asian American Justice Center in the late 1990s. While at SAALT for nearly a decade, she shaped the formation of the National Coalition of South Asian Organizations (NCSO), a network of local South Asian groups, and served as Chair of the National Coalition of Asian Pacific Americans (NCAPA). Iyer’s essays on immigration, the post 9/11 backlash, and racism have appeared in The NewYork Times, The Guardian, USA Today, Al-Jazeera and the Nation.

With contentious national debates on race, religion, and immigration making the news every day, We Too Sing Americais a fresh voice in the conversation.

Deepa Iyer discusses her new book in this exclusive interview.

Deepa Iyer (credit: Les Talusan Photography)

Why did you choose to take the title of your book from a Langston Hughes poem? Does the poem have special meaning for you as an activist for social justice?

Almost ninety years ago, Langston Hughes wrote a poem about how Black people, though they were marginalized and rejected in all aspects of American society, grew stronger and wiser. He wrote that they too “sing America.” The communities I write about in the book — South Asian, Arab, Muslim and Sikh immigrants — are “othered” and scapegoated today in our country. But at the same time, they are finding the strength, courage and purpose to reshape America by telling their own narratives, building community power, and changing policy. That is why the poem resonated with me. Continue reading →

“The various religious expressions emerging in contemporary times in post-colonial Muslim societies also make themselves irrelevant as they cater to the demands of local elites (and very often, their Western backers) and not to those of the bulk of the population who yearn for a praxis-based theology offering a better existence in the here and now. In such conditions, Muslims must dig through the Islamic canon for a discourse far more liberating than merely the negation of beheadings or senseless violence or intolerance.”

by JUNAID S. AHMAD and SANIA SUFI for ISLAMiCommentary on APRIL 13, 2015:

Junaid S. Ahmad and Sania Sufi

When reading dominant narratives about the Muslim world today, we are at pains to escape the imagery of beheadings, stonings, suicide bombings and ‘senseless’ violence in general. The picture has obtained its most concrete manifestation in the form of ISIS. The ‘Islamic State’ seems to embody all that is wrong with a people who have clearly not kept up with the pace of history, and in fact now are trying to offer an atavistic, medieval alternative to it.

However, a critical unpacking of the ideology behind ISIS — however millenarian and myopic it may be — reveals legitimate grievances rooted in an unjust global political architecture which exploits, dehumanizes, and fuels violence among Muslims the world over.

While political expressions of Islam have existed over the past century, the vicious, reactionary, and most obscurantist forms of such currents got their steroid injections through the Western-backed “jihad” against the Communists in Afghanistan in the 1980s. This is clearly the first period of ‘radicalization’ — cradled, nurtured, and advanced by the powerful for their narrow, secular realpolitik. Continue reading →

Editors A. David Lewis and Martin Lund Now are accepting chapter proposals for new collection with established publisher interest!

Despite turning a rather blind eye to them through much of the twentieth century, major American comic book publishers like Marvel Comics and DC Comics have featured, in the twentyfirst century, numerous Muslim superhero characters, with the seeming intention to diversify their fictional universes and to provide corrective representations of Muslims in a cultural moment when stereotype and vilification of Muslims and Islam is particularly rife. The most recent example is Marvel’s Kamala Khan ( Ms. Marvel , Feb. 2014). Although it might be easy to dismiss Ms. Marvel as something peripheral, she was discussed in various mainstream media long before her first appearance. High praise was expressed by Muslims and non-Muslims who thought the character could help “normalize” Muslims in American eyes while vehement opposition was voiced by critics who regarded her as “appeasement” of Muslims. As recently as January 2015, the character was plastered on antiMuslim ads in San Francisco, illustrating the cultural power such characters can attain. It seems clear that, today, Muslim superheroes and Islam in comic books, more generally matter greatly to a large number of Muslims and nonMuslims alike. Continue reading →

This video was produced by Julie Poucher Harbin of ISLAMiCommentary and Catherine Angst of the John Hope Franklin Center as part of the ISLAMiCommentary Field Reports series.

by JULIE POUCHER HARBIN, EDITOR, ISLAMiCOMMENTARY on MARCH 24, 2015:

Just ahead of a national conference being held at Duke and UNC Chapel Hill (2/20/15-2/21/15) on “The Legacy of Malcolm X: Afro-American Visionary, Muslim Activist” I interviewed Sohail Daulatzai (author of “Black Star Crescent Moon: The Muslim International and Black Freedom Beyond America”) on the impact that Black radicalism and Black Islam had on third world revolutionary movements of the 50s and 60s; Malcolm’s recurrent presence within the culture and politics of US racecraft; US empire; and the impact of Malcolm X on post-cold-war hip hop culture.

We also discussed his current projects, including research on the 50th anniversary of The Battle of Algiers film and its relevance today, and work on graphic novel adaption of Sam Greenlee’s novel “The Spook Who Sat by the Door.” Continue reading →

Academic Live Tweeting

Twitter is fast becoming a way for scholars to share information and resources and begin collaborations.

If you are attending or holding a conference, TIRN invites you to live-tweet the presentations and discussions for the benefit of the larger academic community.

Please make a hashtag for the conference that will allow your tweets to be easily followed, for example #IslamArtAfrica13, and place it and @tirnscholars in the body of the tweet so that TIRN can keep its subscribers up to date. You could also submit your event to Inside Higher Ed, eduTweetups page so that it can be found by others.